1990 POPULATION CENSUS Detailed data based on a 2 per cent representative sample (1992)

I. REVIEW OF THE DATA - A/ Main characteristics of the population

I. REVIEW OF THE DATA A/ Main characteristics of the population CHANGES IN THE SIZE AND COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION Demographic composition On January 1, 1990 the size of the resident population of Hungary was 10 375 000 persons

1'', by 3.1 per cent less than at the last population census taken on January 1, 1980. Population density — calculated for the country's area of 93 032 km — was 112 persons per square kilometre, by 3 less than ten years earlier. One hundred and twenty years ago — on January 1, 1870, at the date of the first official Hungarian population census — on the present area of Hungary there lived 5 million persons. The present size of the population is more than the double of the respective figure at that time and is nearly by one fifth higher than the level sixty years ago. The slow pace of the population increase of the 1960s and 1970s, which was scarcely more than the half of the growth observed in the 1950s, was followed by a great population decrease in the 1980s. With the population decrease, Hungary became one with the most unfavourable demographic situation among the European countries. 1. Changes in the size of the population Actual growth or decrease(-) Year Population Period Actual growth or decrease(-) Population number percentage 1930 8685109 1921-1930 698234 8.7 1941 9316074 1931-1941 630965 7.3 1949 9204799 1941-1948 - 111275 - 1.2 1960 9961044 1949-1959 756245 0.2 1970 10322099 1960-1969 361055 3.6 1980 10709463 1970-1979 387364 3.8 1990 10375300 1980-1989 - 334163 - 3.1 In the 1970-1979 period, average yearly natural growth was 3.9 per thousand, followed by a decrease of 1.3 per thousand in the 1980s. The extent of the natural decrease was affected by the live birth rates increasing in the first half of the 1970s and declining later, and by the growing tendency of the number of deaths, respectively. 1/ The population size differs from current population estimates. (For the causes of the difference, see the chapter "Explanation of concepts".) 5